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Protesters charged over scuffle with MP Geoff Shaw will contest the charges

By Jessica LongbottomUpdated
Tue 13 May 2014, 8:46 PM AEST

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Independent MP Geoff Shaw can be seen here on the steps of Parliament in October during the incident.

ABC News

Four protesters accused of assaulting Frankston MP Geoff Shaw on the steps of State parliament in October plan to contest the charges.

John Zammit, 75, Konstantinos Mandikos,74, Gianni Campobassi, 52, and Natalia Potapova, 46, were rallying against changes to taxi licenses when they became involved in the widely-publicised scuffle.

Mr Shaw was not charged over the incident.

Prosecutor Senior Constable Kasey Hadden told the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday that police were willing to deal with the group through a diversion program, which would mean no criminal conviction would be recorded against them.

But their barrister Morgan McLay said there was a lot of emotion involved in the case and his clients wanted to proceed to a contested hearing.

He said one of his clients had lived in Australia for 59 years without being charged with an offence and was taking the allegations very seriously.

Mr McLay also told the court the case against Ms Potapova only consisted of her grabbing Mr Shaw's jacket, a charge which he had never seen pursued by police.

He requested Magistrate John Doherty to order police to hand over documents including the internal police summary of the incident and emails sent between Mr Shaw and police over the matter.

Magistrate Doherty ruled police should hand over the internal summary, but the emails would need to subpoenaed.

Despite all four of the accused being inside the court building they did not go into the courtroom while their case was being heard.

Mr McLay said it was because it had been a stressful situation for the group and some of them were elderly.

He told Magistrate Doherty they would appear if he requested and although the Magistrate was unhappy with their non-appearance he did not force the issue.